More Than Just a Show: Copenhagen’s Endeavor to Become the New Paradigm of Sustainability in Fashion
Written by Pierson Chu
When fashion week is mentioned, most minds wander to Paris, Milan, New York, or London. These cities' calendars are dominated by the most famous brands– Chanel, Prada, Yves Saint Laurent, and more – making them premier events for celebrities, editors, and buyers. For cities not in the “Big Four”, the business of fashion weeks have become extremely competitive with shows being held year round in cities such as Seoul, Berlin, Shanghai, Tokyo, and Copenhagen. In order to generate a unique appeal, fashion weeks must learn to specialize, says Robin Mellery-Pratt, a senior director at the Business of Fashion. Copenhagen Fashion Week (CPHFW) has done exactly that. Following the appointment of new CEO Cecille Thormsark in 2019, CPHFW has been rebranded from the ground up, transforming itself from an ordinary bi-annual show to a platform for sustainability advocacy. The traditional model of viral moments and unique shows – although ever present – were no longer the focal point for this year’s CPHFW, instead the focus was on all things sustainability.
From the recent controversial suspension of the Higg Index, a widely used fashion industry focused sustainability rating system, to the subsequent greenwashing crackdown on major fashion retailers such as H&M and Decathlon, the fashion industry is no stranger to flashy yet substanceless sustainability efforts. Consequently, Thorsmark’s premier goal following her appointment was to “rethink [CPHFW’s] role in the fashion system, and rethink its purpose.” Thorsmark wanted to develop a “model [for sustainability] that [she] hopes to see adopted by other fashion weeks and conferences.” Thus, her first move was to announce a three-year roadmap for the implementation of eighteen sustainability action points required for participants of future iterations of CPHFW. These requirements span the entirety of a fashion company’s value chain (the full lifecycle of a product, including material sourcing, production, consumption, etc.), prompting companies to not only understand the impact of what they produce, but to restructure themselves with sustainability in mind. The requirements were assessed along with fifty-eight questions brands would answer. The CPHFW committee will preliminarily score brands’ adherence to action points as well as their answers to questions on a weighted point system. These scores are then verified by sustainability and engineering consultancies Rambøll, In Futurum, and the Danish Textile Association yearly. These steps are taken in order to build trust and credibility between consumers and CPHFW’s participating brands. Following the verification of scores, brands are split into three categories: those that were approved due to sufficient documentation, those that required further follow-ups, and those that did not meet one (or more) requirements.
Following three years of development and screening, CPHFW finally debuted twenty-nine brands in February that all met the meticulous requirements. In addition to round table discussions hosted by CPHFW, there was an abundance of viral moments–(Di)vision’s tablecloth dress stunt and A. Roege Hove’s Coperni-esque live dress construction–which likely left audiences with little time to appreciate the steps that CPHFW took to reimagine the event. Thormark explains that it was exactly her goal to “prove it’s still possible to do a fashion week in this [more sustainable] way,” without “compromising on aesthetics, fabrics, or creative expression.” Ultimately, the brands are able to conduct business in a more sustainable way by making changes to their entire value chain through fulfilling the 18 minimum standards.
Despite their steps towards becoming a platform for sustainability in the fashion world, CPHFW understands the difficulties ahead. The fundamental issue, says Frederik Larsen, founder of In Futurum, is that “fashion week has no real power over the brands.'' Thus, their goal was never to become the referees of sustainability, but instead to focus on “educating, bringing brands along, [and] making [the] process a very public thing that is happening, so [that brands] don’t want to be left behind.” Thorsmark and the rest of the CPHFW team understand the ambition of turning a traditional event into a platform for advocacy. Therefore, they have laid out a new three-year plan on its website following the milestone of this year’s event. This plan establishes three cornerstones:“Educate, Reduce, and Accelerate.” The cornerstone “Educate”, refers to the expansion of partnerships with research institutions to produce frameworks, execute strategies and insight reports regarding their eighteen minimum standards. “Reduce” has the fundamental goal of helping CPHFW and brands discover methods to offset their carbon footprint. Finally, “Accelerate” refers to how they can continue using CPHFW to push the industry’s social and environmental sustainability efforts. If the implementation of this three-year plan is as successful as the last one, there is a lot to look forward to.
In an industry that is notoriously incapable of cleaning up its act both environmentally and socially, CPHFW has doubled down on its commitment to sustainability. Nicole Rycroft, founder of the non-profit Canopy states that “this is definitely a model that we hope to see adopted by other fashion weeks and conferences. In this turnaround decade for our planet, it’s all hands on deck.” A true paradigm shift will be needed for fashion’s sustainability efforts to see a turnaround, and we can only hope that CPHFW’s efforts prompt the rest of the industry to rethink how sustainability can be integrated into their own value chain.
References:
Copenhagen Fashion Week. (n.d.). Sustainability Strategy & Reporting—Copenhagen Fashion Week. Retrieved 23 April 2023, from https://copenhagenfashionweek.com/sustainability-strategy-reporting
Li, S. (2023, February 7). Copenhagen Fashion Week Rewrites Fashion’s Villain Era. Atmos. https://atmos.earth/copenhagen-fashion-week-sustainability-responsible-requirements/
Maguire, L. (2023, February 3). Copenhagen proves fashion week can be responsible and still fun. Vogue Business. https://www.voguebusiness.com/fashion/copenhagen-proves-fashion-week-can-be-responsible-and-still-fun
Shendruk, A. (2022, June 29). The controversial way fashion brands gauge sustainability is being suspended. Quartz. https://qz.com/2180322/the-controversial-higg-sustainability-index-is-being-suspended
Tribute to Magazine. (2023, February 6). The important message of Copenhagen Fashion Week. https://www.tributetomagazine.com/copenhagen-fashion-viral-moments-important-message/
Edited by: Annie Stockwell, Trey Prater, Hailey Ravitz, and Margot Bond
